


Side Trips

by juniperberry



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperberry/pseuds/juniperberry
Summary: Post chapter 186, originally written 12/2009.





	Side Trips

**Author's Note:**

> After a distance of some years, I think I really like this fic.

Shizuka spent most of his time at either the shop or school. Between the two there wasn't much free time for anything else. 

The fall was crisp and golden in the afternoon, and he turned onto a street he visited at least once a week. It was lined now with young ginkgo trees, their leaves auburn and molten yellow crescents that framed the sky. A few of them crunched underfoot as he walked. The little house he wanted was set a little back from the street, but he knew what he was looking for, always.

"Shizuka-kun," Kohane said. Her hair was pulled back in a thick braid, and she paused as she swept up the fallen leaves. "How are you today?"

"Fine," he said. He rarely needed to say anything else; in this house, more than usual, less was needed.

"You're checking up on me," she said, "for Kimihiro-kun."

He nodded.

Kohane turned her eyes down to the leaves. "I'll come visit soon," she said. "And he doesn't need to worry about my mother."

"He doesn't worry." Much, but Shizuka didn't say that. Kohane knew.

She smiled at him, a little smile. She knew, and understood; he had never been a frequent visitor before that letter from her mother, the one that had put Watanuki's teeth on edge. He had never thought to give her his cell number until then, either. Just in case.

"Obaasan and I made him some cookies," she said. "Would you take them to him?"

"Sure."

***

This street was lined with cherry trees and plums, all their fruit and flowers gone and only their leaves left--dark and bruised against the sky. Shizuka by-passed a number of houses before he found the one he wanted. 

He rarely entered the yard, though he talked with her often; but Himawari was concerned with pushing his apparent immunity too far, and tried to keep what contact they did have brief.

"Doumeki-kun," she said, her smile bright. Tanpopo flitted around her head as she bounced down the stairs. "How are you? How is Watanuki-kun?"

"Fine," he said. "Watanuki is still annoying."

She smiled. "I have another letter for him, if that's all right."

It was always all right, but he didn't offer that consolation. It wouldn't make a difference; she would always still ask. "No problem." He took the cream-colored envelope and tucked it into his jacket. He had quietly experimented, when the odd correspondence between Himawari and Watanuki had sprung up, and the closer the letter was to his skin, the less chance of a minor accident back at the shop.

She gave him a brilliant smile, and began to ask him about his studies at the university, the temple, and Kohane. Watanuki told her the events of the shop through their letters, and she never asked Shizuka for those details. Neither did she invite him to sit at the little patio table and join her for tea, but he was not stupid enough to take offense at that.

***

The temple ran as it usually did. He helped sweep the grounds of the fallen poplar leaves and said hello to his parents, but he was rarely at home anymore, and when he was he spent the majority of his time in his grandfather's library, searching for answers.

The sun dipped lower in the sky, and he hit the streets once more for the last stop. The grocery market was usually a place he liked; he could pick up the ingredients that would inevitably lead to something tasty and delicious he'd been craving, and he only had to listen to the token complaints. He found little things to pick up for Maru and Moro--clip-on earrings, barrettes. They usually only wore them once; they were, after all, not really normal little girls.

For Mokona and himself he found nice liquors that weren't in the wine cellar of the shop. Mokona occasionally craved something that wasn't there, and tonight Shizuka felt like bringing some sake to the shop.

When he arrived it was dark, so dark he could barely make out the pine trees that framed the shop, though the lamps were lit on the front walkway. Maru and Moro greeted him at the door. Sometimes they welcomed him like a customer; other times it was like this.

"It's Doumeki!" Maru latched onto his left arm, which held Kohane's cookies.

"It's Doumeki!" Moro latched onto his right arm, which held the shopping bags.

"What's for dinner?"

"Will it be good?"

"Sure," he said. He wasn't cooking; it was usually good when Watanuki made it.

"Doumeki's here," Mokona caroled, bouncing down the hallway. "And he brought sake!"

"Just what we need," Watanuki drawled, but his voice wasn't bitter or acidic, just mildly sarcastic. Shizuka glanced at him, and felt the usual dull ache in his stomach, that he would never see Watanuki older than seventeen. (Or eighteen. They never had sorted out how old he really was.)

The girls released his arms and Shizuka held up the cookies. "From Kohane," he said. "Kunogi sent a letter, too."

"Ah," Watanuki said. "I had wondered why you were late." He took the cookies and the letter gingerly, tenderly, and looked at them while Doumeki gave Mokona the sake and gifted Maru and Moro with barrettes that had little streams of cloth flowers falling from them. Watanuki stroked the envelope and the box that held the cookies while the girls squealed and Mokona cooed over their own gifts.

Shizuka just watched, as he laid out the ingredients for dinner. For Mokona, he brought alcohol; for the girls, he brought trinkets they would enjoy once, and then promptly forget; but for Watanuki he brought a slice of the outside world with him, in letters and small boxes of sweets and the memory of autumn afternoons.

It was the only thing he could give.


End file.
